Moving Leonardo’s Horse: A Question of Logistics or Pedigree?

Since arriving in 1999, a statue based on one by Leonardo da Vinci has been on display at a racetrack. Some in Milan would like to see it in a more prominent location for the 2015 World Expo.Credit
Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times

MILAN — Thousands of years after the citizens of Troy learned about the complications posed by outsize equine sculptures, the modern residents of Milan find themselves embroiled, again, in a debate about how to make the most of a gift horse: a colossal bronze steed presented by a group of American donors.

Inspired by an uncompleted statue designed by Leonardo da Vinci (the sole clay cast was destroyed in 1499), the 24-foot-tall, 15-ton stallion arrived in Milan in 1999, by way of a foundry in Beacon, N.Y., and was positioned in a pedestrian piazza at the city’s racetrack in the San Siro district.

For its admirers, installing the sculpture in a site where it gets few visitors aside from bettors — whose interest in static horses is understandably limited — has been tantamount to putting it out to pasture.

Now, with the opening of the World Exposition in Milan less than 15 months away, calls have intensified to move the horse to a more visible position and even to make it a symbol of the city during the fair, which officials hope will draw millions of visitors to the Lombardy capital.

The bronze horse “would be a landmark,” a cultural monument akin to the Statue of Liberty, said Carlo Orlandini, president of the Committee for the Great Horse, a volunteer group that has lobbied for years to transfer the steed to a more decorous post.

“We need to persuade people that the current solution is not dignified and doesn’t correspond to the spirit in which the gift was given,” said Mr. Orlandini, whose group is encouraging the public debate on the statue, which was broached in recent weeks by the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Conceived nearly four decades ago by a retired airline pilot, Charles C. Dent, of Allentown, Pa., as a contemporary substitute for Leonardo’s original, the bronze statue was intended as a gift from the American people to their Italian counterparts “to honor Leonardo da Vinci and Italian Renaissance,” a plaque on the pedestal explains.

Before he died in 1994, Mr. Dent involved dozens of donors to raise more than $6.5 million to cast the horse. In 1999, it was shipped to Milan and inaugurated with much fanfare at the San Siro racetrack, far from the city center. There, it has effectively “been abandoned,” Mr. Orlandini said.

A cultural and educational park that the city had agreed to build at the track as part of the donation agreement never materialized, “which was a disappointment,” said Peter C. Dent, Charles Dent’s nephew, who has been on the board of several institutions “that look after the interests of the horse.”

Over the years, attempts to move the horse have faced a variety of obstacles, including a vociferous residents’ committee in San Siro that wants the statue to stay. City Hall also dragged its feet, if only because finding an alternative site has been a municipal brainteaser.

Now the citywide preparations for the World Expo — which starts in May 2015 — have offered the steed’s supporters new hope that it will find a new home, if only for the six months of the expo’s run.

“I say let’s talk about it,” said Giangiacomo Schiavi, deputy editor of Corriere della Sera, who recently opened a debate in the newspaper about moving the statue, which he said should be valued as a “symbol of Milan’s welcoming reception” for all visitors.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Showcasing the horse could also highlight Leonardo’s underexplored ties to Milan, he said. After all, Leonardo lived in the city for nearly 20 years, leaving his masterpiece “The Last Supper” as the best-known testament of his stay. His uncompleted horse was intended to honor a powerful 15th-century Milanese duke, Francesco Sforza. Had French soldiers occupying the city not used the clay model for target practice in 1499, it would have been the largest bronze horse in existence.

The publicity over moving its modern successor (no easy feat in itself) would once again focus attention on that historical link, even as the story of Charles C. Dent and his dream to resuscitate Leonardo’s lost horse stands as “a symbol of overcoming the impossible,” Mr. Schiavi said.

But the debate on this horse’s mixed pedigree has riled some critics, described by Mr. Orlandini as “purists,” who say that the American horse’s links with Leonardo’s lost work are questionable at best.

When Charles Dent engaged on his quest to rebuild Leonard’s horse, he created a model based on the artist’s extant writings and drawings. When his clay model was enlarged, however, it manifested various proportional and anatomical distortions, so in 1996 the backers drafted the American sculptor Nina Akamu to complete the project. She started from scratch, and her version, while inspired by Leonardo, “is not intended to be a recreation of his sculpture,” she wrote in her artist’s statement.

“We treat it and try to talk about it for what it is,” said Joseph Antenucci Becherer, vice president and chief curator of the Sculpture Program at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Mich., which has its own version of the statue. “It is an original work of art by Nina Akamu, though it’s been difficult to get that across to people.” He called the horse “a monument to creativity.”

Critics of the horse are quick to underscore its modern aesthetics, deemed to be post-Leonardesque. “Nina’s horse, with all due respect, would never have been accepted, because it’s a contemporary work and it’s a bit banal,” said Marco Castelli, a retired businessman and an artistic-heritage promoter who has written a book about the horse.

There is as yet no official decision on the statue’s future. Milanese officials seem receptive to a new location with the expo approaching. But much may depend on whether the Great Horse committee will pay the transportation bill, estimated, conservatively, around $412,000.

The complicated logistics of moving the horse in one piece would involve various municipal departments, as it could involve cutting tram and electrical cables along the route and ensuring that roads could support the weight.

One possible alternative site, City Hall says, would be in front of the Sforza Castle, in an area where the expo’s information center is being built. Some city lawmakers, however, argue that moving the horse just for the six-month event is a waste of resources and money at a moment when the city should be focusing on other priorities.

“It would be better to keep the horse at the racetrack,” said Enrico Fedrighini, a Milan Council member. “And send expo visitors there.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 24, 2014, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Moving Da Vinci’s Horse: A Question of Logistics or Pedigree?. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe